30-Yr Mortgage Rate Edges Higher To 4.33% – Freddie Mac

By Michael Aneiro

Mortgage rates rose a bit in tandem with Treasury yields in the latest week, with the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rate climbing to 4.33% in the week ended today from a six-week low 4.27% a week ago, according to Freddie Mac’s (FMCC) latest weekly Primary Mortgage Market Survey. A year ago that rate averaged 3.40%. The average 15-year fixed-rate mortgage rate rose to 3.39% from 3.33% a week earlier and 2.61% a year ago.

A similar 30-year mortgage rate measured by the Mortgage Bankers Association’s latest weekly survey rose to 4.49% in the latest week from 4.47% a week earlier. The average rate for jumbo loans of more than $417,000 remains below the rate for smaller loans, rising to 4.41% from 4.39% a week ago. That survey also showed mortgage applications fell by 3.3% in the latest week.

Amey Stone is Barron’s Income Investing blogger and Current Yield columnist. She was formerly a managing editor at CBS MoneyWatch, MSN Money and AOL DailyFinance. Her responsibilities included overseeing market coverage and personal finance topics. Prior to those roles, she was a senior writer at BusinessWeek where she authored the Street Wise column online and contributed to the magazine’s Inside Wall Street column. Topics covered included economics, corporate finance, Fed policy, municipal bonds, mutual funds and dividend investing. She co-authored King of Capital, a biography of Citigroup Chairman Sandy Weill. She is a graduate of Yale University and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.